


A Hundred Ways to Shame Your Ancestors

by Byacolate



Series: Due Influence [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blankets, M/M, Marshmallow Adaar, Naked Cuddling, Powerful Emotions and How to Navigate Them feat. Dorian Pavus and the Big Grey Bossman, Schmoop, Sharing Body Heat, blatant and unrepentant protective boyfriendery, gratuitous affection, hothouse orchid dorian, or That Cold Weather Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian has been by the Inquisitor‘s side for months now, and sometimes he wonders whether he‘ll ever be used to the southern chill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hundred Ways to Shame Your Ancestors

**Author's Note:**

> Aofunk prompted me with "Dorian and dudequnquisitor sleepily swappin happy childhood memories in their afterglow" and it became... all of this. No one is more surprised than me.

”The damp cuts right through your armor, doesn‘t it?” Cassandra asks, and Dorian can feel the exact moment Adaar‘s eyes come to rest on him. Varric snorts, but Cassandra forages ahead, oblivious to the fact that her general question has given him undue speculation from their fearless leader. Dorian magnanimously decides to pretend not to notice for all of twelve seconds, before he can resist the siren call of all that attention no longer.

 

”Oh come now, dear Inquisitor,” he says, arching a brow right back in the direction of all that scrutiny. ”You couldn‘t possibly expect me to run about in the wilderness looking anything less than marvelous. The coastal thugs are terrible gossips, you know, and my reputation among the bandit underground would be reduced to _tatters_. Some of us have to sacrifice Cassandra‘s sense of practicality for true beauty.”

 

”I‘m going to pretend I didn‘t hear that thinly veiled insult,” says Cassandra, stepping over a piece of driftwood.

 

”There was nothing veiled about it,” Dorian retorts fondly. Adaar watches him still - specifically, the bare brown curve of Dorian‘s shoulder. His gaze doesn't linger for the same reason it normally might anywhere else. Nearly anywhere else. Anywhere warm and dry and _not_ the Storm Coast, if one was splitting hairs.

 

”Do you -” Adaar begins, looking perhaps two seconds away from stripping the massive coat off his back and swaddling Dorian within it.

 

And then, with timing like champions, the Hessarians attack (odd, considering he‘d heard the Inquisitor had challenged their leader and earned their allegiance. Are defective Hessarians still Hessarians? He should ask Varric) and Dorian‘s impractical-yet-wildly-stylish taste in armor is shouldered from the forefront of Adaar‘s priorities once more.

 

Or so he thinks, until they return to camp for the evening and Adaar casts a barrier over the fire the Inquisition officers have been trying (and failing) to build for hours. The sudden burst of magic startles them, badly enough to remind Dorian that none of these people are used to magic outside of the theoretical, the periphery. He now serves a people for whom magic is little more than a cautionary tale - a source of disdain and far-removed intrigue. They respect the Inquisitor for what he has done, for the mantle he's taken, but they still look upon his staff with uncertainty, openly wary of his sparking fingertips even as he summons arcane barriers to protect them from the rain, fire to keep them warm.

 

Adaar pays them no mind, though; he rounds on Dorian instead, not with words but in the expression on his face. His eyes narrow for a brief second before he turns again, bypassing Varric and Cassandra and all the little officers who have forgotten their disconsertion with magic in favor of huddling around the roaring fire it had provided. He disappears within his tent and then reappears not a moment later with an armful.

 

 

There are little wrinkles at the corners of Adaar‘s eyes that always seem conspicuously deeper when he so much at thinks about smiling. Dorian is forever wary of just how charmed he is by them. Particularly now, when Adaar approaches with a cloak underarm and a compelling little smile that makes those wrinkles deep and disarming.

 

”I thought you might find better use for this than I have,” he says innocently enough, pressing the thick, deep grey bundle into Dorian‘s arms. The words are spoken softly, privately, but behind Adaar across the fire, Varric meets Dorian’s eyes with a little smirk.

 

It isn‘t malicious - Dorian isn‘t sure Varric is capable of malice, not even toward Cassandra, not truly - so the corner of Dorian‘s mouth ticks upward in return before he draws his attention back to Adaar.

 

”All of this mother henning might give a man the wrong idea,” Dorian says as he obligingly draws the cloak over his shoulders. ”Or the right one.”

 

”You can have whatever ideas you‘d like, as long as you have them where it‘s warm. And preferably safe.”

 

”That rules out all of Ferelden and a third of Orlais,” Dorian frowns. ”Who will have all of my ideas for me, then? I have so many, you know. Most of them are good. Some are even polite for mixed company. All of them are jewels.”

 

”And is your choice of armor?”

 

”And is my choice of armor, what? Good, or polite for mixed company?”

 

Adaar tactfully avoids that conversational landmine with silence and a meaningful glance, as always, before he turns to his requisition officer for the report she‘s been eying him at the edge of camp in impatience to give since they arrived.

 

Dorian is warm and relatively safe, so he figures he‘s earned the right to entertain as many decidedly good thoughts about the breadth of Adaar‘s firelit shoulders as he likes, whether they are polite for mixed company or not.

 

 

* * *

 

There is a particular chill that squeezes into the very marrow of his bones whenever they enter the Fallow Mire that remains long after they have escaped it. It sets Dorian‘s teeth on edge, makes him want to curl in on himself next to a bonfire as big as a village. Or perhaps within one.

 

 

He is no stranger to spirits and corpses and ancient, bone-rattling magic, but there is something about what lingers in the Mire that is _wrong_.

 

Still, brave and altruistic as he is, he cannot leave Adaar to go without him - not when Solas could fall prey to the temptation to nap within the rich spiritual embrace of swamp muck; not when Vivienne might decide that the invitation to go traipsing through a bog was the straw to break the wyvern‘s back, so to speak, and finally leave Adaar for greener, cleaner pastures.

 

They are not charitable thoughts to have, but charity won‘t improve the Inquisitor‘s odds of survival.

 

(As far as Dorian can figure, those are abysmally low as it is: three-to-one at best. They rest somewhere closer to five-to-one without Dorian at his side. So it behooves him to brave the Mire, as the Inquisitor must.)

 

Cole is just as pale and gaunt as the walking corpses, but he is a welcome sight nonetheless. It soothes Dorian somewhat to see the boy flickering in and out of sight, eviscerating the dead who lurch a little too close to the Inquisitor. It is good to know that someone has Adaar‘s back while Adaar is so infuriatingly determined to have Dorian‘s. Blackwall cuts a path through them, urges Adaar past the endless hoard, and Adaar heeds him.

 

They‘ve barely paused to catch their breath from all the re-smiting before a great, hulking Avvar hacks and slashes at the Inquisitor - or, more specifically, at Warden Blackwall in an attempt to reach the Inquisitor. But the warrior lives up to his name and his calling. Dorian is so confident in him, in fact, that he isn't even a little tempted to get up close and personal enough to introduce the Avvar‘s gaping maw to a fistful of lightning.

 

Adaar frees the hostages before their enemy‘s body has finished tumbling to the ground because of course he does, and hours later, tucked away in camp though they are, Dorian‘s skin has not stopped crawling. There are several footsoldiers, a roaring fire, a Grey Warden, a blade-happy almost-spirit, and a massive qunari with an unrealistic tally of victories that should ease his mind enough to allow him to sleep, but they do not.

 

He joins Cole for the first watch, then the second despite Cole‘s thoughtful attempts to send him away to his tent. By the time the last of the officers begin bunking down and the well-rested ones are stirring, Dorian is running out of anecdotes to fascinate his very naive audience of one.

 

”But wouldn‘t that have been very difficult to fit into a glass bottle?” Cole asks, eyes wide beneath the brim of his hat. Dorian tsks.

 

”Now now, you must learn _never_ to underestimate a blood mage with a hobby.”

 

”I must've missed a very interesting story with a punchline like that,” comes a drowsy voice, craggy and low, from the mouth of a tent. Adaar towers over all even as his shoulders slouch, his posture loudly protesting wakefulness. Dorian frowns.

 

In much the same tone he used to tease Cole, he uses to scold: ”What on earth are you doing awake?”

 

”Taking my watch,” Adaar grumbles, acknowledging Cole with a nod.

 

”I‘m sorry; you must have forgotten the hoard of walking dead. No? The scores of demons popping out of the marsh? The massive barbarian war chieftan who was out for your blood not hours ago? You should be sleeping well into next week.”

 

”Blackwall took the brunt of that,” Adaar grunts, crossing his arms. He looks perhaps ten seconds away from falling over. Would he make the same sound as a fallen tree if he did? He is roughly the size of a tree. Odds were good. ”He deserves the rest.”

 

”Blackwall is a Grey Warden,” Dorian feels he must remind him. ”He‘s gone toe to toe with archdemons and their ilk, I‘m sure. Tonight was more of a corpse-infested walk in the park. Did you even see him break a sweat? I‘ve heard rumors about Grey Warden stamina, but the reality is truly remarkable.”

 

”You‘re shivering.”

 

Adaar‘s frown is deep. Dorian has never been the recipient of that look before; normally it‘s reserved for paperwork and Orlesian politics. Cole doesn‘t help matters at all by contributing from the sideline, ”He won‘t do anything about it. I mentioned it twice, but he didn‘t listen.”

 

”Oh, was that you? I could have sworn it was a grandmotherly bee buzzing in my ear. Wrap up, Dorian. You‘ll catch your death, and then the purest source of charm in the world will be gone forever, and it is already in _such_ short supply.”

 

”I didn‘t say any of that,” Cole clarifies helpfully. ”I didn‘t make him think I did, either.”

 

Adaar‘s expression softens. ”The both of you could use some sleep.”

 

”Not me,”  Cole says, ”just Dorian. But he won‘t. I think he‘s -”

 

” - Going to interject on his own behalf now, thank you.”

 

”This place is full of the creeping dead,” Cole murmurs, trying to soothe him. It might have worked, had Dorian‘s feathers been unruffled. ”They seek to harm and nothing else, always stumbling in search of more death. They are frightening.”

 

”Cole.” Adaar‘s fingers light upon the spirit‘s shoulder, and Cole goes entirely silent. ”Thank you. Shouldn‘t you get some rest?”

 

”I don‘t need to,” Cole says, focused entirely on the hand at his shoulder. Adaar quickly withdraws it. Dorian wonders when the last time was that someone thought to give Cole any physical contact that had naught to do with violence. He wonders, too, when the last time was that Adaar thought to give it and it wasn‘t rebuked. ”But I will go.”

 

”Stay close,” Adaar murmurs. Cole tilts his head to the side.

 

”Probably,” he agrees, and vanishes.

 

The officers shuffle around at the perimeter of camp. Dorian is mindful of their presence now more than he was when Cole was beside him instead. ”Always so chipper first thing in the morning. You‘re a regular ray of sunshine.”

 

Adaar snorts, taking one step closer, before apparently thinking better of it and taking another back. ”I wasn‘t really sleeping, anyway,” he confesses. ”I‘ve seen a lot in my time - probably too much for my own good -” he  wiggles his fingers when Dorian pointedly eyes the mark, ”but legions of the animated dead are... unsettling.”

 

”Don‘t get me wrong,” Dorian quips, sidling toward the Inquisitor. ”I don‘t mind corpses. I don‘t even think I‘d be opposed to an army of them, as long as I was in command.”

 

The Inquisitor‘s eyes are dark, and Dorian is too busy trying to find their color in the firelight to concern himself with fresh memories of wretched, sunken flesh and rattling moans.

 

”But the stars weren‘t aligned in such a fashion tonight.”

 

”That‘s what you really need,” Adaar says, the ‘ _need_ ‘ catching on a yawn. ”You, a mage from Tevinter, with your own corpse army.”

 

”I‘m just not content with all the scrutiny I‘m already under,” Dorian says a little gleefully. ”What else, then? Shall I wear the blood of my enemies for war paint? Perform ritual sacrifice in the courtyard under the light of the full moon?”

 

”Josephine would have her work cut out for her trying to write _that_ one off.”

 

”She could use the challenge.”

 

Adaar‘s laughter is a quiet, sleep-cracked thing in the hush of early morning, and as the light notes linger Dorian finds he is no longer quite so cold.

 

 

* * *

 

Dorian is a grown man, more than capable of conjuring a fireball or two for warmth should he so desire. Still, apart from telling him so, Dorian raises no protest when Adaar comes to him before the campfire and cups Dorian‘s chilly fingers between his hands. Adaar‘s hands engulf Dorian‘s entirely, and within their enormous grasp Dorian‘s fingertips begin to thaw.

 

Dorian has been by the Inquisitor‘s side for months now, but sometimes he wonders whether he‘ll ever be used to the southern chill.

 

”This place gives me a headache,” Dorian says, just quiet enough to be private and pathetic, and the lines around Adaar‘s mouth soften.

 

Emprise du Lion truly sets him ill at ease. It‘s all the red lyrium, he thinks; living poison festering in the very air, so potent that it sings even to dwarves. But if that‘s the case, then Adaar must feel it too.

 

”I can send for Solas or Vivienne, if you‘d prefer,” he offers just as quietly, bringing their joined hands up and tipping his head down. He breathes long and slow through his own fingers, wide palms trapping the hot air within, warming Dorian immeasurably. ”I could send a few of the scouts to escort you back to Skyhold. Harding would be happy to oblige.”

 

”How very like you to fuss over me. Reminds me what a wilting flower I truly am at heart.”

 

”A real hothouse orchid,” Adaar agrees. He is patient and keen even on his off days, even after being so close - entirely too close - to so much red lyrium, and Dorian‘s silent reprove has not escaped him. ”You know I would extend the same offer to any of the Inquisition, were they unwell.”

 

”And if you yourself were unwell?” Dorian quirks a brow. ”Cassandra would have to club you over the head and bodily drag you away from the source of danger. You‘re more of a cautionary tale than an example to us all, but the precedent has already been set.” He offers a winning smile, and waits for Adaar to return it. ”I‘m afraid you‘re stuck with me for the moment.”

 

”I wouldn‘t have it any other way.”

 

”No,” Dorian murmurs, wiggling his fingers within the protective cage of Adaar‘s hands. ”No, I don‘t suppose you would.”

 

* * *

 

The look he gets from the Chantry sisters and their dear Mother Giselle alone don‘t mean much. He has suffered much worse from people he‘s loved far more. But it is like a bucket of ice water has been poured down his spine when he thinks of what they must say to their beloved Inquisitor, if indeed they say anything at all.

 

Perhaps they do not at that; when Adaar happens upon them in the middle of one of the holy Mother‘s attempts to exorcise Dorian from the premises like a particularly pesky demon, he cannot tell whether Giselle or Adaar is more surprised.

 

He dispels her concerns as trifle in a way only a man completely unconcerned with appearances can (that, or he truly has never questioned Dorian‘s intentions, not even once, and Dorian doesn‘t know what to do with that much trust), and in his mind the matter is settled.

 

But Adaar doesn‘t suffer the same cutting gazes across the courtyard, and he isn‘t greeted with sudden, intense silence when he graces the garden with his presence.

 

Their disdain does not chill him in the way the fear that it might infect their Inquisitor does.

 

But Giselle‘s respect for Adaar keeps the sisters at a respectful distance when they take their strolls out of doors. Adaar either loves ribald tales of Tevinter intrigue, or he quite likes the sound of Dorian‘s voice, for they take to the routine walks like little old men. Sometimes they stop to watch Cassandra beat at her dummies, and sometimes Adaar humors him when they draw up alongside the soldiers to allow Dorian critique their uniforms. Sometimes Adaar comes baring a bottle of brandy - the good stuff, not the swill at the tavern Dorian keeps letting Sera convince him to drink - and they indulge in a quiet hour to watch the clouds part over the mountains.

 

Like this, who he knows he is almost eclipses what the good sisters of the faith believe him to be.

 

And then it happens. It begins as most days do with familiar, heavy footsteps ascending the stairs nearby. Dorian shares a private smile with his books, fingers spread against their dusty spines, before he turns to greet his guest.

 

”Always a sight for sore eyes,” he says, pulling away from the shelf to step closer.

 

Dorian reaches out with one hand, brushes his fingers against a shiny button over Adaar‘s sternum, and Adaar mentions an amulet. An amulet he should know nothing about.

 

”Leliana,” Dorian mutters, shooting an irritable glance upward. He should have known better than to have a shouting match with the merchant so close to Skyhold - to think that as long as he kept his problems outside the gate, there they would remain.

 

This stone fortress has far too many ears.

 

The Inquisitor was never supposed to know. Dorian is far from powerless, and even dishonorable merchants have their weak spots; he only needed the time to find them. Time that, if _Dorian_ doesn‘t have to win his own possessions back, the leader of the Inquisition certainly doesn‘t.

 

And Adaar doesn‘t, but he‘d do it anyway, and therein lies the problem. It would be the simplest thing in the world to ask a favor of the man, because who on Andraste‘s blessed earth hasn‘t? What‘s one more bully to tower over to achieve some petty means to an end for a friend - a lover? Adaar would take to the task like a fish to water, secure anything Dorian‘s fickle little heart desired at the snap of a finger. He probably wouldn‘t even have to ask to be given priority over the hundreds of other issues clamoring for his attention. Adaar doesn‘t see the burdens he bears for what they are; he sees them as responsibility, as his duty to his people, the same people who have long decided that his being thrust into the wrong place at the right time somehow made him Responsible For All This. He does not mind looking after them all.

 

But Dorian doesn‘t want to be looked after. He doesn‘t want to be another of the countless burdens carelessly placed on those shoulders, like their broadness implies he was meant to bear them all. He wants to be a partner, an equal.

 

He doesn‘t want to prove Giselle right.

 

Dorian deflects and deflects, but Adaar is relentless in his gentle probing until Dorian switches tactics as one might with a small child. He snaps, ” _Leave it be!_ ” and doesn‘t know if it makes him feel better or worse when Adaar doesn‘t even flinch. Perhaps a different man would have gone a little hard around the eyes, lashed out in turn out of hurt or wounded pride or a grotesque amalgamation of both. Instead, Adaar leans into Dorian, approaching the spitting cat with an open outstretched palm, and promises, ”We‘ll figure something out.”

 

Dorian knows what that means, but he is determined to have the last word.

 

Not a day later they set out for Val Royeaux, and like a fool Dorian never questions it. If he was interested in his own defense he could acknowledge the fact that he had no way of knowing the toad would be there for certain, but he isn‘t interested in his own defense at all.

 

Even knowing this would happen doesn‘t stop the guilt and anger from rising deep and silent within his belly, watching as Adaar agrees to the terms set by that slimy stain of a man. A very cruel part of him almost wishes Adaar would drop the diplomacy and use his extraordinary height, his enormous grey countenance to intimidate the amulet out of him, to leave him trembling and shamed in place of triumph, but the thought is fleeting and only makes him feel worse in the end. It is not in Adaar‘s nature to instill terror into lesser mortals intentionally, and he goes to great lengths to prove he is no brute, to remove the stigma attached to his horns and the color of his skin. If anyone can understand that, it is Dorian.

 

It isn‘t practical to stalk away angrily, but he doesn‘t feel very practical at the moment - just nettled.

 

They spend a quiet night in Val Royeaux and even in the face of Dorian‘s ire, Adaar is frustratingly empathetic. He does not press for Dorian to relent or forgive or see common sense - he lets him have his silence, goes so far as to wordlessly brush his knuckles between Dorian‘s shoulder-blades only once that night after dinner on their walk from the cafe to the hotel - probably to express to Dorian what Dorian already knows: that he doesn’t fault Dorian for his outburst. That he understands Dorian has his reasons, though he may not understand what they are, not really. That he will wait as long as he must. That he is there.

 

The trip back to Skyhold is made bearable by Bull and Sera’s banter, who at least may distract Adaar from Dorian’s silence. It is a silence that has burned itself out by the time they climb the steep slope to Skyhold’s gates, at which point Dorian is left feeling somewhat off-kilter and unsure of how to approach Adaar with the conclusions he’s drawn on the journey.

 

It is a wonder he worries at all; he should have known the Inquisitor would act first.

 

Familiar footsteps approach his alcove early the following day and Dorian intends to apologize, he truly does, but what comes out of his mouth sounds more like an accusation-turned-plea. Adaar must know that the people whisper - good people. Better people than Dorian. They are not wrong to fear, to doubt Dorian’s intentions. He must know, he must understand that there is such a thing as too trusting, too selfless. He must not give and give and give, because all people know what to do with that generosity is take and take and _take_. Perhaps Dorian is one of those people. Perhaps the holy Mother is right.

 

It is unbearable, the look in those eyes and what it does to him. He’ll never get a proper apology out at this rate.

 

And the things he says, the way he dismisses Dorian's concern's - Giselle's concerns - like they are nothing but hot air, are cause for concern. But they set his heart at ease all the same.

 

“You really must start taking me more seriously,” he mutters, drawing close enough to the Inquisitor that he can see nothing and no one beyond him; his attention begins and ends with Adaar. He lifts his hand to a dear cheek. “I’m a very bad man, you know. It’s all true.”

 

Adaar’s hand envelops Dorian’s, holding it still so he can turn his head to press a kiss to the center of Dorian’s palm.

 

”You‘re less a cautionary tale, more of an example to us all,“ Adaar says, his lips nuzzling the tips of Dorian‘s fingers. ”But the precedent has been set.”

 

Dorian kisses him hard in the alcove before the books and the birds and all of sundry like a fire has been lit under his ass.

 

* * *

 

Skyhold sits atop a mountain, and really, Dorian was never meant for crisp mountain air. It‘s invigorating, he hears, which is a funny thing considering all it makes him want to do is find a patch of sunlight squarely in the center of a large bed to curl within and doze for hours on end; perhaps a nice lap to rest his head upon, too, firm and warm. Maybe an accompanying hand to card through his hair and tell him how pretty he is.

 

He is turning into a cat, and the blame rests entirely upon the damnable nip in the air.

 

The only good it does him really is the perfect excuse he has to creep past the Great Throne of Smitery, up a ludicrous amount of stairs, and into the Inquisitor‘s bed on what has become a daily occurrence. Nightly occurrence. Semantics hardly matter when the end result is a nest of blankets, satisfying aches in glorious places, and a deep-rooted heat that warms him from the inside out.

 

Dorian finds himself in such a position one frigid night, sprawled over Adaar. Sometimes he indulges himself in this - there is something about the way every sordid inch of him can be touched all at once, easily stretching from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. Dorian has never been accused of being petite, but it makes his stomach flutter in dastardly ways to be reminded of how _big_ Adaar really is, broad of shoulder, sturdy as steel, frighteningly powerful in the arcane.

 

He wiggles thoughtfully at his own musings and Adaar groans, the sound vibrating through his chest against Dorian‘s cheek.

 

”Not yet,” Adaar protests hoarsely, flattening a palm over the small of Dorian‘s back. He shivers and twitches his hips once more, just to be contrary.

 

”... Where _did_ you throw the blankets?” Dorian asks not a moment later when the overwhelming heat of all their vigor has begun to seep from his body. His backside is going to catch its death of cold at this rate. Picking his head up, Dorian takes a  look around. He sees them, half disappeared over the edge of the bed, and grimaces. ”Marvelous. I‘ll just wander the vast, freezing planes of your bed in the nip to fetch them, shall I?”

 

Adaar pats his ass fondly and Dorian sighs. It is a burden and a curse to leave Adaar‘s warmth for even a second, but Dorian has never claimed to be anything but the very picture of heroism; in his opinion, this only proves it.

 

Once they are sufficiently tucked in and no drafts lick at his sweat-damp skin, Dorian hums in satisfaction. He lays only half over Adaar then, pressed to his side like a limpet. It is a tactical move Cullen would be scandalized by and grudgingly proud of, the way Dorian has slung a thigh over Adaar‘s; it promises to lead to either a rather pleasant second round of entertainment for the evening, or a very good morning indeed. Either way, Dorian wins. Dorian likes winning.

 

”It isn‘t like this in Tevinter,” he sighs, resting his cheek upon one solid bicep. It must be a qunari thing, all this scorching body heat; Dorian‘s never been with a human who's felt quite so warm, rain or shine or blasted southern chill.

 

It could just as easily be an Inquisitor thing, he supposes; Dorian hasn‘t been close enough to another qunari outside of battle for him to come to an accurate conclusion. Perhaps it is the anchor which sets his blood alight, warms him from deep within like a ticking timebomb, like - like a train of thought Dorian refuses to entertain here in this sanctuary of blankets and skin.

 

”So I hear.”

 

Dorian waits for him to steer the conversation elsewhere or go quiet in favor of sleep, but Adaar surprises him, as he always does. ”What is it like then?”

 

”I‘m fairly certain you bled me dry for every last scrap of Tevinter intel I possessed the moment I‘d set foot in Haven,” Dorian ribs. He closes his eyes for a long, indulgent moment when Adaar‘s bicep shifts and flexes under his cheek and a hand burrows comfortably in his hair.

 

He really will have mastered the art of feline transfiguration before this Inquisition business is all said and done.

 

”I was...“ Adaar starts, and stops. ”You were...”

 

Dorian‘s lips curve of their own volition.

 

”Lost for words?”

 

”Actually,” Adaar laughs quietly, ”I think I have too many.”

 

”I would hear some of these words, I think.”

 

He runs a hand over Adaar‘s broad chest and opens his eyes to find Adaar‘s looking back at him, soft and drowsy and content. ”I was curious; you were intriguing. I was enchanted; you were delightful. I was taken; you were the most captivating thing I'd seen west of Calenhad, even hidden away in the shadow of the apothecary. I was desperate for your time; you are changing the subject.”

 

”There‘s a subject?” Dorian asks faintly. Any day now, he will be accustomed to the unending barrage of honest, open adoration. It hasn‘t happened yet, but it surely must. He‘s not sure his heart is strong enough to bear it all if it does not.

 

”Tevinter,” Adaar prompts, and Dorian draws a nail gently down the center of his chest.

 

”Tevinter,” Dorian concedes, ”is nothing like this. We do have cold seasons, of course, but they are nothing like what you suffer here. It is little wonder Fereldens are considered the backwater cousins of Thedas - the climate makes a man want to tackle a bear and burrow in its entrails for warmth.”

 

”You paint a charming picture.”

 

”You did ask.”

 

”Whatever I asked, I‘m not sure you answered.”

 

Dorian thumbs at a dark nipple. Adaar‘s fingers twitch in his hair.

 

”My father was from Seheron,” Adaar says once Dorian‘s eyelids have begun to droop of their own accord. They flit up again at the sound of his voice, deep and thoughtful in the quiet night.

 

”He never liked the cold either. But he did like my mother. He‘d get this look on his face after the first autumn chill that never really disappeared again until summer.” Dorian‘s eyes flicker up to Adaar‘s from where they had rested on the hypnotic movement of his mouth.

 

”He sounds like a rational individual,” Dorian murmurs. He brushes the strong line of Adaar‘s jaw with his fingertips. ”Apart from that ridiculous business about your mother. What poor fool would leave the warmth and comfort of the north for something like _love_?”

 

”What poor fool indeed,” Adaar laughs, turning his warm gaze upon Dorian once more.

 

_What poor fool indeed._

 

”I have no charming parental anecdotes to share in return, I‘m afraid.” A gentle thumb slides down the thin, soft skin behind Dorian‘s ear and dispels what bitter taste might have otherwise befouled the back of his mouth. ”But I would not protest hearing another of yours.”

 

It occurs to Dorian how rarely he‘s heard anybody ask anything of the Inquisitor‘s past at all when he has the most intimate knowledge of theirs. As though he only began to exist, to matter after the explosion at the conclave.

 

Adaar makes a thoughtful noise and closes his eyes. ”My mother grew up Vashoth in the Free Marches,” he says after a moment of consideration, ”as her parents before her. My father was part of a small dispatch sent to wipe them from the territory.”

 

”Ah, the eradication of an entire community as little more than vermin,” Dorian nods. ”The makings of every great love story.”

 

”Of that day, they told me that it was she who cleaved my father‘s left arm from his body, and nothing else.”

 

Dorian makes an undignified sort of half-strangled laugh. ” _Nothing_ else?”

 

”That she managed it in one fell blow?” Whatever expression is on Dorian‘s face makes him smile, amused. ”But no, nothing more than that.”

 

”... It occurs to me, not for the first time, that you are extremely mild-mannered for your.... humble origins.”

 

Adaar laughs. ”She never did anything to  _my_ arms,” he says, rather beside the point. ”Considering everything, I was fairly sheltered as a child. They... left their old lives at the doorstep, so to speak.”

 

”Am I to believe you were not given a mercenary blade straight out of swaddling clothes?”

 

Adaar snorts. “When I joined the Valo-Kas, my mother didn‘t seem surprised. More smug than anything. My father never gave me his opinion on the matter. I like to think he preferred it to a lifetime of mundanity for me, but I never asked.”

 

”No?”

 

”You don‘t ask a qunari for their opinion unless you really want it.”

 

”And you didn‘t want it.”

 

Adaar‘s smile takes a wry twist before it fades. ”He left the Qun for my mother, but the Qun never left him, not really. Sometimes I‘d forget how deep the disgust for Tal Vashoth ran in someone raised in the Qun. But then there‘d be some - some word, some custom, some _thing_ just a little too Vashoth between my mother and I, and we‘d all... remember.”

 

Dorian realizes that his brow has knit fractionally tighter and tighter as every word falls from Adaar's mouth, and though he worries it may be unwise, he asks, ”And the ways he chose to... remind you?”

 

”My father would have taken on a fleet of dreadnaughts for my mother and I,” Adaar says. His certainty eases some of the tension in Dorian‘s jaw. ”He had no love for the Vashoth, when he had nothing _but_ for us. But my mother always insisted that the Tal Vashoth was inextricable from us both. It was never not a point of contention between them. Partly because he agreed with her.”

 

 

Adaar shifts over to his side to face him, mindful of Dorian’s leg between his powerful thighs. It upsets Dorian‘s head on his arm, but Dorian won‘t hold it against him for long. ”He never hurt us,” he says, and the last of Dorian‘s brand new, shiny, untested concern is laid to rest. ”My mother wouls have taken his other arm if he tried.”

 

”I don‘t need to remind you that there is more than one way to cause harm to those you love,” Dorian says loftily. Adaar makes an indiscernible noise and all but crushes Dorian to his chest. ”Now now, we‘ve already had our little song and dance for _my_ sordid past. There‘s no need to fuss. I wouldn‘t thank you for it.”

 

”Then it‘s a good thing I‘m not after your thanks.”

 

”You never are," Dorian sighs. "It was quite vexing, trying to figure you out, you know. At first."

 

Adaar is somewhere just above him; Dorian has a fantastic view of his chin. He nudges his nose into Dorian‘s hair.

 

”Oh? You spoke like you had me all figured out from the very beginning.”

 

”I was so sure I had, too. It seems you like to prove me wrong.”

 

”Not especially.”

 

”What was that you were saying about qunari and asking for their opinions?”

 

He does adore the sound of Adaar‘s laughter, particularly when he himself is the cause.

 

”One winter - the worst since the fourth Blight, so I was told - we were trapped in our cabin by ice and snow for four days. It only took two before my father snapped and bundled the three of us up in front of the fire in a nest of all our summer clothes. My mother protested only once - but then he tossed his leather jerkin into the fire, and she never argued the arrangement again.” Dorian can feel Adaar's smile as it forms against his brow. ”It was the only thing of his she openly admired. Said it made him look roguish. She mourned it right through the thaw of spring.”

 

”I‘ve seen you in leather,” Dorian muses. ”If you take after him at all, I do sympathize with her.”

 

”Don‘t worry,” Adaar huffs, ”I'm well aware you might take _my_ arm if I tried to burn anything you liked.”

 

”Oh, please. As if I would stop at your arm.” Turning his face up at Adaar‘s laugh, he sniffs, ”Were that everyone was so unconcerned with an evil magister‘s idle threats as you.”

 

”Perhaps if you were actually evil,“ Adaar allows. ”Or, indeed, a magister.”

 

”And what of my threats?”

 

”You don‘t give threats; you give fair warning.”

 

”Oh, I do love you.”

 

Adaar‘s hand is a brand of heat against the small of his back as Dorian falls asleep. Dorian pointedly does not consider how funny it might seem, in another world, that it is in _spite_ of the Anchor that the touch makes him feel tethered to solid ground.

 

What poor fool indeed.

**Author's Note:**

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